Strategic HRM and Leadership at Agripest Solutions Assignment: A Comprehensive Analysis for Organizational Growth

Assessment Brief: report of 3,500 word assignment

Students are required to demonstrate their knowledge of human resource management from a strategic point of view. Students will also be expected to critically analyse the different theories of management and leadership styles and apply them in answering the different parts of the assessment. Through the assessment, students also need to demonstrate that they can suggest appropriate recommendations in a business context through the given scenario. The assessment has been designed so that students are able to demonstrate that they fully understand the different concept of SHRM, different Management and Leadership issues and the context within which they occur.

Strategic Human Resource Management for Leaders Assessment

Agripest Solutions (APS) — A Story of Challenges, Change and Growth

APS is an agrochemical industry and manufacturer of pesticides used to protect crop production and food supply from pest threat. Based in South-West England, APS started as a one-man business by Richard Drumford, a chemical engineer and farmer, who in his struggle to protect his crops from diseases and pests ventured into local production of pesticides. The success of Richards experimentation led to increased yield and healthy harvest. With the world’s growing population and the increasing demand for food and agricultural products, Richard identified the need to produce affordable agricultural chemicals to fight pests and improve the output of agricultural products. He, alongside his close friend and management savvy John Brown, started APS in 1984 with the financial backing of private equity investors, along with a small team of financial analysts, marketing specialists and chemical engineers.

Within six years, the company had grown from a headcount of 12 to 250, demonstrating their achievements and receiving industry awards for best in local sector. At this stage of the company’s journey, the entrepreneurial spirit is central to the organisational culture. APS is fast paced and as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Richard ensured new ideas and strategies are implemented quickly and with little consultation. With the hit of the Covid-19 pandemic, the company was significantly affected and is now facing a different picture — a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) world. Although the company has continued with success and has evolved through innovative growth and blockchain, it is found that interdepartmental relationship which is integral for sustainability is suffering and the business can no longer function through a solo decision maker. Issues are beginning to arise resulting in tensions and employee demotivation, clearly identified through the annual employee survey results but also observed through behaviours.

As the company’s Chief Operations Officer (COO), John Brown is keen to ensure that APS upholds company values and culture that help win business from clients time and time again. The company’s mission is to retain the leading position as best in class within the industry sector. The outward projection of the company’s organisational culture is its attractive working environment and the presentation of service delivery as better than the other competitors in the sector. APS is proud of its company image and branded “better than the best” slogan across artefacts such as promotional material, in addition to office interior designs. Clients visit to the company’s offices is seen as ceremonies, where the clients are walked through departments, showcasing the working practices of the conscientious and hard-working employees, striving for results. Employees are forewarned of visits and the code of conduct is issued to ensure that the observed culture represents the company’s image.

The company’s hero is Richard Drumford, and he is responsible for all strategic activities carried out in the company. It is important to him that he is held in high esteem during any external conversations and that he is seen as a role model of the company’s standards. The legend around how the company began is the starting point to external presentations and widely known throughout the company.

During the early years of trading, the core of APS’ business values was:

• Take risks
• Drive results
• Respond and adapt to change
• Respect authority
• Employee Well-being

Underpinning these values are a set of basic assumptions which are still operational. They are often unspoken but provide guidance on how actions are carried out within the organisation. During those early days, APS consisted of a small team of like-minded individuals, having little or no organisational structure. Presently, the senior leadership team, the CEO, COO, CFO and the Sales and Marketing Director, are all White middle-aged men, responsible for the key decision making in the organisation. Work is task focused and individuals are closely managed to ensure they are delivering exactly what is requested. Unplanned detailed progress discussions occur regularly with senior management and should errors occur or timescales slip, APS operates a public name and shame policy. Communication is open, but often abrasive and the selection criteria would filter out the more sensitive individuals, who are seen as bad fit. Fast paced and aggressive employees carry out work as quickly as possible, often to the detriment of documentation. The question of “why”, or challenging the status quo is not thought of. Few months ago, upon questioning an I.T technician to enquire why an old processing system had not been updated, the response given was, “Because Richard wanted to maintain the old system and he stood over my shoulder whilst I programmed the system according to his orders. That’s how we do things around here. It didn’t make sense to me why we cannot upgrade our system, but who am I to argue.”

Centralised control is directed through the leadership of Richard Drumford. As the main influencer, he acts as the “head of the family” pulling in those close to him, such as the senior management team and ensures decision making resides only with them. Others have little to no influence on goals or procedures and change is defined and controlled through only those with a position of power. To operate in this environment, employees need to demonstrate loyalty to the individuals emanating the power or, plan to leave the organisation. This is evident in the high turnover among employees.

APS’ vision is to grow from being a small to medium sized enterprise, to a large organisation capable of global expansion by 2035. The company has undergone business analysis in order to deploy process improvement and management control. The directive for this initiative came from John Brown, who is informed through the wider board of directors that regulatory compliance is essential for any business to survive in the agrochemical industry. There is a significant business need for the success of this initiative and business buy-in is evident amongst most, but not all members of the management team.

In 2019, the senior leadership team identified the need for more managers in order to provide adequate controllership over employees, leaving the senior leaders to focus on the more significant business decisions. It was determined that to support the growth of the business, greater emphasis should be on structure and control, creating the need for more departments and teams. APS initiated a recruitment drive that resulted in some new employees and managers joining the organisation. The managers have been specifically selected from a reputable agrochemical company, Farmco, a multinational company with a global reputation. The company is known for its ethical operations, tailored insight, data-driven training, market-leading maintenance culture and having a benchmark for business excellence. On assessing Farmco’s organisational effectiveness, there were a number of values they used to performance manage their employees:

• Goal Specification: All goals are aligned to the key business objectives, cost control, growth, customer centricity and stable processes. Farmco set goals are deployed from the top down during the same annual planning cycle and are clearly communicated business wide.
• Clarity and communication of goals: Farmco sets goals using the SMART model (smart, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound). By using this model, employees understand how to achieve high performance and how to provide evidence. It creates accountability that result in employee motivation to succeed.
• Awareness of/and ability to function in commercial environment: Farmco has strong credibility and as a brand, are able to attract clients easily. The company’s reputation gives confidence that performance and financial rewards will be delivered.
• Facilitative management structure: The emphasis on management at Farmco is around coaching and mentoring. Networks are developed to support diversity in the workplace and mentoring relationships exist at all levels. Employee grooming through training & development and employee wellbeing are in the heart of Farmco’s operations.
• Motivated, valued and appropriately able workforce: Farmco rewards for performance and manages those unable to perform into more applicable roles or out of the business if required, thus ensuring the workforce are a highly capable set of achievers.

It was these qualities that attracted APS to recruiting Farmco’s employees. It was perceived that they would be a good fit, given the company’s vision to create a similar organisational environment. In the years 2020 to 2021, APS recruited 8 ex-Farmco employees into management positions, resulting in 40% of the middle management team with a Farmco background by the end of 2021. Farmco is a corporate organisation with standards, procedures and policies that reflect a large multinational organisation, a different organisation to APS, which is born through entrepreneurial spirit and “do it quick now”, rather than “do it right later”. It was during this phase in APS’ history that two cultures joined. The insurge of ex-Farmco employees into managerial roles at APS can be treated as a merger, albeit through choice, as managers willingly joined the APS workforce. Results from employee surveys reveal the attraction of joining APS was the growth prospects of the organisation and the promise of high rewards through equity shares. Nonetheless, two different organisational cultures are merged, which could potentially be the root cause of conflict and tensions.

Unlike the poor culture in APS, teamwork is at the heart of how Farmco operates. Change happened through teams and employee buy-in is critical to success. Employees are encouraged to challenge the status quo and look for new and better ways of working. The emphasis is around getting the right solutions and processes, rather than the quickest option. The group ethics lent itself well to innovation, and brainstorming in diverse groups Is a frequent occurrence conducted in a non-critical and encouraging environment. However, there are disadvantages to working primarily through groups, such as a slower pace of change to achieve sufficient buy-in and the reliance on rules and bureaucracy for decision making.

Employees are often treated as relatives at APS and in doing so, poor performance is often overlooked. An example is the recruitment of Andrew Idamusa, a technician, known to CEO Richard, as a university buddy. Andrew has the relevant qualifications for the role he is allocated however, he regularly did not turn up to work after attending social events the night before. His attendance is so poor that the attendance factor score used for absence management is no longer able to calculate a result. This appears to the other managers as unprofessional absence resulting in consistently late and low-quality work, but it is allowed to continue with what appears, little action taken.

In Farmco on the other hand, job roles are taken seriously and there is a very high expectation to deliver on tasks. For example, a new manager inherited a poor performer, who is also an old corporate friend. After assessing the employee’s records, there was no question about what the required action should be. His employment was terminated, the situation was communicated between the two old friends and accepted amicably. Poor performance is not sustainable; poor performing employees are managed through improvement based personal development plans or a company exit strategy, if improvements were unobtainable.

Where previously the APS culture was highly visible and dominant in the organisation, upon the recruitment of several senior management professionals from Farmco, sub-cultures become more visible. The conflict between the subcultures often manifests during change management meetings. The former Farmco employees would all adhere to the change control process by attending the meetings, providing sign-off, completing documentation and participating in meetings. This bureaucracy slows down the pace of change and it is not supported by Richard Drumford, the key innovator. Those who are loyal to Richard and favour the old working practices displayed resentment towards change management structures and would use their influence to deploy selfish practices.

Those involved in change find it difficult to carry out their roles effectively. Objections raised against structurally wrong practices are often ignored, because of Richard’s viewpoint and influence. The directive given by the COO, John Brown, is to formalise and introduce controllership, but the CEO preferred an unrestricted and informal way of working, causing role incompatibility. This created role strain; it is demoralising and causing tension as reflected in the employee survey results.

Several grievances were raised regarding the alleged bullying from Richard Drumford; individuals were being forced to go against the direction of their managers due to conflicts about working styles. These grievances were addressed unsuccessfully and eventually the role strain led to the departure of 4 of the ex-Farmco managers in the Summer of 2023, though their roles were central to strategy and change management. This emphasised the issue with the culture at APS. The departure of these key workers was deemed a failure in the company’s mission.

A strategy was initiated recently, to re-develop the culture and reinstate the initial company values of APS around responding and adapting to change, employee wellbeing and driving results. Failure to display the core set of values would mean poor performance and reduced bonus payment for all employees, including the leadership team. This initiative and new strategy have been established to encourage an authentic and ethical work environment and leadership practice, regardless of history. To support this, the senior leadership has been requested to attend an intensive leadership course to establish the company core values, to embrace change and focus on behaviours.  Richard Drumford is yet to commit to any suitable time for this course, as he argues to be very busy with more strategic issues. Whether the CEO and other members of the senior leadership team will embrace the new values and practices is yet to be evidenced, as APS have only just begun this new journey.

The Requirements

As a Leadership Consultant appointed to support APS in their new journey, your report should cover the following areas:

• A contextualisation of the current HRM and Leadership issues at APS and discuss their significance for the success of the business [LO1, LO2] (25%)
• Critically evaluate the implementation of HRM policies and state how they would assist the business to better utilise its ‘people’ assets and support the overall organisational strategy [LO2, LO3] (35%)
• Discuss your change management strategy with regards to organisational culture change and analyse the leadership and ethical challenges that may be faced in the implementation process [LO4] (15%)
• Present a summary of the action plan that the leaders within APS must now take to ensure that the HR strategy is adequately linked to the overall organisational strategy to achieve competitive advantage in the long term. [LO3, LO4] (10%).
• After your Reference section, include a Reflective Learning Statement to demonstrate your engagement with the module, how support from the tutors have helped you to improve your final assignment submission and the self-learning you undertook to complete the overall assignment task. Use a reflective model (e.g Gibbs) to help inform this part of your assignment. PUT THE REFLECTIVE STATEMENT AFTER THE REFERENCE SECTION. THE REFLECTIVE STATEMENT DOES NOT CONTRIBUTE TO THE OVERALL WORD COUNT OF THE ASSESSMENT. INSTRUCTIONS AND DETAILS OF HOW TO WRITE A REFLECTIVE STATEMENT WILL BE PROVIDED DURING THE LECTURES AND SEMINARS. IN WRITING THIS PART, YOU ARE TO USE FIRST PERSON. PLEASE REMEMBER, IT IS YOUR LEARNING JOURNEY OF THE MODULE NOT THE ASSESSMENT NOR THE REPORT WRITING TECHNIQUE (10%).
• Clarity, fluency and logical layout of assignment with all work duly referenced and a full list of references according to Harvard Referencing Style (5%)

Tables and wordcount

It is important that you are aware that some of the contents need to be put in the tables. This refers to the table where you will contextualise APS as well as the action plan [both for which you will have the templates available for]. As such, the wordcount of the table does not count towards your final wordcount however this should not be seen as extra space where you would move 3000 or 5000 words into, instead, you need to see the tables as an opportunity to be succinct, and most likely you will be using bullet points.

Reflective statement

Finally, it is your decision how much space you devote to the reflective statement, and we will not be imposing the wordcount limit, but again, please make sure that you are reasonable. For some that would be 300 or 700 words which is fine but it won’t be fine if you only use 100 words or, on the other hand, write 1500 words. Please be reminded that the reflective statement does not contribute to the overall word count of the assessment.

Harvard style referencing and intext citations

Indicative Learning Resources:

• Armstrong, M., 2020. Armstrong’s Handbook of Strategic Human Resource Management: Improve Business Performance Through Strategic People Management. Kogan Page Publishers
• Storey, J., and Wright, P.M., 2023. Strategic human resource management: A research overview. Routledge.
• Tarique, I., Briscoe, D.R. and Schuler, R.S., 2022. International Human Resource Management: Policies and Practices for Multinational Enterprises.
• Legge, K. (2005) Human Resource Management: Rhetorics and Realities. Anniversary Edition, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
• Leopold, J. & Harris, L. (2009), The Strategic Managing of Human Resources, 2nd edition, Harlow, Financial Times Prentice Hall
• Millmore, M., Lewis, P., Saunders, M., Thornhill, A. and Morrow, T. (2007) Strategic Human Resource Management: Contemporary Issues. 1st Edition, Harlow, Pearson Education Limited
• Rees, G and Smith, P.E. (2021). Strategic Human Resource Management. London: Sage Publications.
• Torrington, D. Hall, L. Taylor, S. Atkinson, C. (2020), Human Resource Management, 11th edition, Harlow, Financial Times Prentice Hall.

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